Comment ordering system

ABSTRACT

In one embodiment, a social networking system receives a request by a first user for user comments associated with a content object, accesses a data store of user comments to retrieve a set of user comments associated with the content object, orders the set of user comments based on a time value associated with each comment of the set of user comment, adjusts the order of user comments based on social graph information of the first user, and presents the adjusted list of user comments to the first user.

This application is a continuation under 35 U.S.C. §120 of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 12/969,408, filed 15 Dec. 2010, the disclosure ofwhich is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure relates generally to a user comment system and,more particularly, to ordering and presenting user comments based onsocial graph information and other attributes.

BACKGROUND

A social networking system, such as a social networking website, enablesits users to interact with it and with each other through the system.The social networking system may create and store a record, oftenreferred to as a user profile, in connection with the user. The userprofile may include a user's demographic information, communicationchannel information, and personal interest. The social networking systemmay also create and store a record of a user's relationship with otherusers in the social networking system (e.g., social graph), as well asprovide services (e.g., wall-posts, photo-sharing, or instant messaging)to facilitate social interaction between users in the social networkingsystem.

Users of a web site may post comments to contents of the web site. Theweb site may store user comments as well as moderate user comments suchas deleting user comments determined to be irrelevant or inappropriate.

SUMMARY

Particular embodiments relate to ordering user comments associated witha content object, and more particularly to a user comment system thataccesses a data store of user comments to retrieve a set of usercomments associated with the content object, orders the set of usercomments based on a time value associated with each comment of the setof user comment, adjusts the order of user comments based on socialgraph information of a first user, and presents the adjusted list ofuser comments to the first user. These and other features, aspects, andadvantages of the disclosure are described in more detail below in thedetailed description and in conjunction with the following figures.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates an example social networking system.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example web page of an article and associatedcomments.

FIG. 3 and FIG. 3A illustrate example data structures of user commentsstored in a comment data store.

FIG. 4 illustrates an example web page using an inline frame for usercomments.

FIGS. 4A, 4B, and 4C illustrate an example of synchronization of usercomments between the social networking system and a third party website.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example method of ordering user comments.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example network environment.

FIG. 7 illustrates an example computer system.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The invention is now described in detail with reference to a fewembodiments thereof as illustrated in the accompanying drawings. In thefollowing description, numerous specific details are set forth in orderto provide a thorough understanding of the present disclosure. It isapparent, however, to one skilled in the art, that the presentdisclosure may be practiced without some or all of these specificdetails. In other instances, well known process steps and/or structureshave not been described in detail in order not to unnecessarily obscurethe present disclosure. In addition, while the disclosure is describedin conjunction with the particular embodiments, it should be understoodthat this description is not intended to limit the disclosure to thedescribed embodiments. To the contrary, the description is intended tocover alternatives, modifications, and equivalents as may be includedwithin the spirit and scope of the disclosure as defined by the appendedclaims.

A social networking system, such as a social networking website, enablesits users to interact with it, and with each other through, the system.Typically, to become a registered user of a social networking system, anentity, either human or non-human, registers for an account with thesocial networking system. Thereafter, the registered user may log intothe social networking system via an account by providing, for example, acorrect login ID or username and password. As used herein, a “user” maybe an individual (human user), an entity (e.g., an enterprise, business,or third party application), or a group (e.g., of individuals orentities) that interacts or communicates with or over such a socialnetwork environment.

When a user registers for an account with a social networking system,the social networking system may create and store a record, oftenreferred to as a “user profile”, in connection with the user. The userprofile may include information provided by the user and informationgathered by various systems, including the social networking system,relating to activities or actions of the user. For example, the user mayprovide his name, profile picture, contact information, birth date,gender, marital status, family status, employment, education background,preferences, interests, and other demographical information to beincluded in his user profile. The user may identify other users of thesocial networking system that the user considers to be his friends. Alist of the user's friends or first degree contacts may be included inthe user's profile. Connections in social networking systems may be inboth directions or may be in just one direction. For example, if Bob andJoe are both users and connect with each another, Bob and Joe are eachconnections of the other. If, on the other hand, Bob wishes to connectto Sam to view Sam's posted content items, but Sam does not choose toconnect to Bob, a one-way connection may be formed where Sam is Bob'sconnection, but Bob is not Sam's connection. Some embodiments of asocial networking system allow the connection to be indirect via one ormore levels of connections (e.g., friends of friends). Connections maybe added explicitly by a user, for example, the user selecting aparticular other user to be a friend, or automatically created by thesocial networking system based on common characteristics of the users(e.g., users who are alumni of the same educational institution). Theuser may identify or bookmark websites or web pages he visits frequentlyand these websites or web pages may be included in the user's profile.

The user may provide information relating to various aspects of the user(such as contact information and interests) at the time the userregisters for an account or at a later time. The user may also updatehis or her profile information at any time. For example, when the usermoves, or changes a phone number, he may update his contact information.Additionally, the user's interests may change as time passes, and theuser may update his interests in his profile from time to time. A user'sactivities on the social networking system, such as frequency ofaccessing particular information on the system, may also provideinformation that may be included in the user's profile. Again, suchinformation may be updated from time to time to reflect the user'smost-recent activities. Still further, other users or so-called friendsor contacts of the user may also perform activities that affect or causeupdates to a user's profile. For example, a contact may add the user asa friend (or remove the user as a friend). A contact may also writemessages to the user's profile pages—typically known as wall-posts. Auser may also input status messages that get posted to the user'sprofile page.

A social network system may maintain social graph information, which cangenerally model the relationships among groups of individuals, and mayinclude relationships ranging from casual acquaintances to closefamilial bonds. A social network may be represented using a graphstructure. Each node of the graph corresponds to a member of the socialnetwork. Edges connecting two nodes represent a relationship between twousers. In addition, the degree of separation between any two nodes isdefined as the minimum number of hops required to traverse the graphfrom one node to the other. A degree of separation between two users canbe considered a measure of relatedness between the two users representedby the nodes in the graph.

A social networking system may support a variety of applications, suchas photo sharing, on-line calendars and events. For example, the socialnetworking system may also include media sharing capabilities. Forexample, the social networking system may allow users to postphotographs and other multimedia files to a user's profile, such as in awall post or in a photo album, both of which may be accessible to otherusers of the social networking system. Social networking system may alsoallow users to configure events. For example, a first user may configurean event with attributes including time and date of the event, locationof the event and other users invited to the event. The invited users mayreceive invitations to the event and respond (such as by accepting theinvitation or declining it). Furthermore, social networking system mayallow users to maintain a personal calendar. Similarly to events, thecalendar entries may include times, dates, locations and identities ofother users.

The social networking system may also support a privacy model. A usermay or may not wish to share his information with other users orthird-party applications, or a user may wish to share his informationonly with specific users or third-party applications. A user may controlwhether his information is shared with other users or third-partyapplications through privacy settings associated with his user profile.For example, a user may select a privacy setting for each user datumassociated with the user and/or select settings that apply globally orto categories or types of user profile information. A privacy settingdefines, or identifies, the set of entities (e.g., other users,connections of the user, friends of friends, or third party application)that may have access to the user datum. The privacy setting may bespecified on various levels of granularity, such as by specifyingparticular entities in the social network (e.g., other users),predefined groups of the user's connections, a particular type ofconnections, all of the user's connections, all first-degree connectionsof the user's connections, the entire social network, or even the entireInternet (e.g., to make the posted content item index-able andsearchable on the Internet). A user may choose a default privacy settingfor all user data that is to be posted. Additionally, a user mayspecifically exclude certain entities from viewing a user datum or aparticular type of user data.

A social networking system may support a news feed service. A news feedis a data format typically used for providing users with frequentlyupdated content. A social networking system may provide various newsfeeds to its users, where each news feed includes content relating to aspecific subject matter or topic, and/or other users. Various pieces ofcontent may be aggregated into a single news feed. In someimplementations, a social networking system may provide a news feed thatincludes selected entries corresponding to activities of a user'sfirst-degree contacts and/or pages or topics that a user has indicatedan interest. Individual users of the social networking system maysubscribe to specific news fees of their interest. U.S. Pat. No.7,669,123, incorporated by reference in its entirety for all purposes,describes a system that can be used to dynamically provide a news feed.A group of related actions may be presented together to a user of thesocial networking system in the same news feed. For example, a news feedconcerning the event organized through the social networking system mayinclude information about the event, such as its time, location, andattendees, and photos taken at the event, which have been uploaded tothe social networking system. U.S. application Ser. No. 12/884,010,incorporated by reference in its entirety for all purposes, describes asystem that can be used to construct a news feed comprising relatedactions and present the news feed to a user of the social networkingsystem.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example social networking system. In particularembodiments, the social networking system may store user profile dataand social graph information in user profile database 101. In particularembodiments, the social networking system may store user event data inevent database 102. For example, a user may register a new event byaccessing a client application to define an event name, a time and alocation, and cause the newly created event to be stored in eventdatabase 102. In particular embodiments, the social networking systemmay store user privacy policy data in privacy policy database 103. Inparticular embodiments, the social networking system may store mediadata (e.g., photos, or video clips) in media database 104. In particularembodiments, databases 101, 102, 103, and 104 may be operably connectedto the social networking system's front end 120 and news feed engine110. In particular embodiments, the front end 120 may interact withclient device 122 through network cloud 121. Client device 122 isgenerally a computer or computing device including functionality forcommunicating (e.g., remotely) over a computer network. Client device122 may be a desktop computer, laptop computer, personal digitalassistant (PDA), in- or out-of-car navigation system, smart phone orother cellular or mobile phone, or mobile gaming device, among othersuitable computing devices. Client device 122 may execute one or moreclient applications, such as a web browser (e.g., Microsoft WindowsInternet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Google Chrome, andOpera, etc.) or special-purpose client application (e.g., Facebook foriPhone, etc.), to access and view content over a computer network. Frontend 120 may include web or HTTP server functionality, as well as otherfunctionality, to allow users to access the social networking system.Network cloud 121 generally represents a network or collection ofnetworks (such as the Internet or a corporate intranet, or a combinationof both) over which client devices 122 may access the social networksystem.

In particular embodiments, a user of the social networking system mayupload one or more media files to media database 104. For example, auser can upload a photo or a set of photos (often called a photo album),or a video clip to media database 105 from a client device 122 (e.g., acomputer, or a camera phone). In particular embodiments, the one or moremedia files may contain metadata (often called “tags”) associated witheach media file. For example, a photo shot by a digital camera maycontain metadata relating to file size, resolution, time stamp, name ofthe camera maker, and/or location (e.g., GPS) coordinates. A user canadd additional metadata values to a photo, or tag a photo, during anupload process. Some examples of tags of a media file are author, title,comments, event names, time, location, names of people appearing in themedia file, or user comment. In particular embodiments, a user may tag amedia file by using a client application (e.g., a photo or videoeditor), or entering one or more tags in a graphical user interface of amedia uploading tool that uploads a user's one or more media files froma client device 122 to the social networking system. A user may also taga media file after an upload at a later time in the social networkingsystem's web site. In particular embodiments, the social networkingsystem may also extract metadata from a media file and store themetadata in media database 104.

In particular embodiments, news feed engine 110 may access user profiledatabase 101, event database 102, and media database 104 for data abouta particular user of the social networking system, and assemble a listof one or more activities as news items for a user or a set of users. Inparticular embodiments, news feed engine 110 may access privacy policydatabase 103 and determines a subset of news items based on one or moreprivacy settings. In particular embodiments, news feed engine 110 maycompile a dynamic list of a limited number of news items in a ranked orsorted order. In particular embodiments, news feed engine 110 mayprovide links related to one or more activities in the news items, andlinks providing opportunities to participate in the activities. Forexample, a news feed can comprise wall posts, status updates, comments,and recent check-ins to a place (with a link to a web page of theplace).

In other embodiments, news feed engine 110 may access user profiledatabase 101, event database 102, and media database 104 and compile adynamic list of a limited number of news items about a group of relatedactions received from users of the social networking system (i.e., anews feed). For example, a news feed can comprise an event that a usermay schedule and organize through the social networking system (with alink to participate the event), messages about the event posted by theuser and other participants of the event, and photos of the eventuploaded by the user and other participants of the event.

Users of a social networking system can access other websites or thirdparty websites (e.g., ESPN.com, www.youtube.com). In particularembodiments, a user using client device 122 may connect to andcommunicate with third party website 130 through network cloud 121.Third party website 130 may comprise web server 131 operativelyconnected to one or more data stores 132 storing user data and web pageinformation. User data may include, for example, user name, user profilepicture, and user profile information (e.g., location, affiliation,interest). Web page information may include, for example, page layoutinformation, scripts, web page content such as text (e.g., ASCII orHTML), media data (e.g., graphics, photos, video clips), and executablecode objects (e.g., a game executable within a browser window or frame).In particular embodiments, a user may use a web browser orspecial-purpose client application hosted on client device 122 to accesstheir party website 130 by sending an HTTP request to web server 131,causing web server 131 to access the one or more data stores 132 andconstruct one or more web pages or frames displayed in the web browseror the special-purpose client application.

A social networking system may communicate and access third partywebsite 130, and vise versa, through network cloud 121. For example, aweb page constructed by third party website 130 for a user of a socialnetworking system can contain information from the social networkingsystem, such as a frame displaying profile pictures of the user'sfirst-degree friends who are currently active on third party website130. For example, a user's user profile page of a social networkingsystem can contain an embedded video clip that the user posted on thirdparty website 130. In some embodiments, a web page constructed by afirst web site may include one or more inline references that cause theclient device 122 to access and display content from a second website byincorporating in the web page's HTML document Uniform Resource Locations(URLs) and/or script code (e.g., JavaScript, PHP, AJAX) that causes aclient application hosted on the client device 122 to access the secondwebsite to dynamically provide content specified by the script code(e.g., profile pictures). In some embodiments, a browser cookieinstalled by a second website on client device 122 can be used tofacilitate accessing the second website. For example, requeststransmitted to the social networking system for a particular user mayinclude a browser cookie or other token to enable automaticauthentication and access to the social networking system for theparticular user (e.g., to access and display profile pictures of theparticular user's first-degree friends), without the particular userhaving to manually enter user ID and password information of the socialnetworking system.

Individuals viewing a web page containing particular web content (e.g.,an article, a blog post, a photo, a video clip, etc.) can post one ormore comments about the particular content on the web page. FIG. 2illustrates an example web page of an article and associated comments.In the example of FIG. 2, the web page displays comments 201 and 202about an article (a blog) 200, and in-line comments 203 and 204responding to comment 201. A viewer of the web page can add a newcomment in comment box 210 and select post comment icon 211 to submitthe new comment, causing all or part of the web page to refresh andupdate with the new comment by the viewer. Ordinarily, third partywebsite 130 stores comments in the one or more data stores 132, anddisplays comments in chronological order (e.g., most recent is displayedfirst) in a web page. However, comments on the top of the list in a webpage may not be most relevant to a viewer of the web page. Particularembodiments herein describe methods in that a social networking systemhosts a user comment system for a third party website, and presents usercomments to a first user based on the first user's social graphinformation and, in some instances, one or more privacy settings.Particular embodiments herein can be implemented by a comment hostingprocess hosted by one or more computing devices of the social networkingsystem.

In particular embodiments, a user comment may be a comment associatedwith particular web content in a web page constructed by third partywebsite 130. For example, a comment associated with an article can be acomment made by a first person to the article, and can be a comment madeby a second person to the article, and can be a comment made by a thirdperson to the comment made by the first person to the article. Inparticular embodiments, a user comment may comprise content informationand author information. For example, content information can be contentof the comment (e.g., a text string) and a time stamp. Authorinformation can be a name of the author of the user comment (e.g., auser name, a screen name, etc.) and a profile picture of the author. Insome instances, if an author of a user comment prefers to remainanonymous, or information about the author is not available, a defaultname (e.g. “anonymous user”) and a default profile picture may beassigned to the user comment. In particular embodiments, a user commentmay further comprise review information. For example, review informationcan be how many up or down votes the user comment has received fromviewers of the user comment. For example, review information can be howmany “like” counts the user comment had received from viewers of theuser comment. For example, review information can also include theauthor's reputation score derived from votes, likes or other feedbackreceived by other users across a set of comments (e.g., an author can bea popular commentator if he has received positive reviews in ten othercomments he made). In particular embodiments, a user comment may furthercomprise or be associated with one or more privacy settings.

In particular embodiments, the comment hosting process may store one ormore user comments associated with the particular web content in commentdatabase 105 illustrated in FIG. 1. In particular embodiments, commentdatabase 105 may be operably connected to system front end 120, and newsfeed engine 110. In particular embodiments, the comment hosting processmay store and access user comments based on a common thread comprisingone or more user comments associated with the same web content. In someembodiments, the comment hosting process may store and access usercomments based on a unique thread identifier. For example, a threadidentifier can be a combination of URL address of third party website130 and a web content identifier for the particular web content. FIG. 3illustrates an example data structure of user comments stored in acomment data store. In the example of FIG. 3, user comments to a webcontent “article_1234” at web site “www.example.com” are programmingobjects linked to a common thread identifier“www.example.com/article_1234” (320), and each programming object cancomprise content information (e.g., a text string, a time stamp), authorinformation (e.g., a name, a user profile picture thumbnail), reviewinformation (e.g., up/down vote count), and/or one or more privacysettings. Another example data structure of user comments stored in acomment data store can be each comment object containing a threadidentifier field 330 as illustrated in FIG. 3A. In such animplementation, the comment hosting process can store and access thecomment objects based on a value of the thread identifier field.

In particular embodiments, the comment hosting process may add/adjustone or more privacy settings of a user comment stored in commentdatabase 105 based on the user comment author's privacy settings storedin user profile database 101. For example, a first user can configureand store in user profile database 101 a particular privacy setting forhis comments on any web content of third party website 130 as onlyviewable to his first- and second-degree friends. The comment hostingprocess can add the particular privacy setting to a user comment made bythe first user at third party website 130 when storing the user commentin comment database 105. In other embodiments, the comment hostingprocess may apply a default privacy setting to a user comment that isglobal to social networking system, e.g., viewable to everyone.

In particular embodiments, web server 131 of third party website 130 mayinclude in structured documents transmitted to client applications HTMLor other code objects that cause the client applications to transmitrequests to the comment hosting process for user comments associatedwith the particular web content. The request causes the comment hostingprocess to access comment database 105 and provide the requested usercomments. For example, web server 131 may construct a web pagecontaining the particular web content and the requested user commentsassociated with the particular web content. In some embodiments, webserver 131 may construct a web page of the particular web content (e.g.,an article, a photo, or a video clip), including an inline frame foruser comments associated with the particular web content by using anHTML iframe tag referencing social networking system and a uniqueidentifier for the particular web content or comment thread. FIG. 4illustrates an example web page using an inline frame for user comments.In the example of FIG. 4, web server 131 of website “www.example.com”constructs a web page 400 in HTML of an article about a college footballgame (401), including an inline frame 402 using a HTML iframe tagreferencing the social networking system and a unique identifier for thearticle www.example.com/article_1234, such as:

<iframe src=”http://www.facebook.com/comment.php?href=  http://www.example.com/article_1234 width=”600px”> </iframe>

The foregoing iframe element causes a client application hosted on aclient device 122 to transmit a request causing the comment hostingprocess to access comment database 105 based on the unique identifier.The comment hosting process provides a response including user commentsassociated with the article to be displayed in the inline frame. In someimplementations, the response also includes Asynchronous JavaScript andXML (AJAX) code, or alternatively a combination of JavaScript andJavaScript Object Notation (JSON) code, that allows users to postcomments, either new comments and/or in-line replies to existingcomments. For example, an individual can add an additional comment byentering a text string in comment box 420 and selecting Add Comment icon421. The AJAX or JSON code of the inline frame transmits a message tosocial networking system, causing comment hosting process to store theadditional comment in comment database 105 and refresh content in inlineframe 402 to include the additional comment. In some implementations,the user viewing the content and submitting comments can be identifiedbased on browser cookies including a user identifier that are appendedto various requests transmitted to social networking system. Asdiscussed below, the comment hosting process, when receiving a comment,may also configure a news feed item for processing by news feed engine110. Still further, the comment entry interface may also allow a user toconfigure a privacy setting for that particular comment or all commentsof the user associated with the particular web content. For example, theuser may specify that only a custom set of users can access the content,or that only those users having a first degree relationship can see thecomment whether in a news feed item or displayed in connection with thethird party web site. If no particular privacy setting is configured,the comment hosting process may apply a default setting that is globalto social networking system or a default specified by the user andstored with the user's profile information.

Additionally, a user's comment about the particular web content at thirdparty website 130 may appear in the user's news feed in the socialnetworking system, or in a news feed of a friend of the user in thesocial networking system. The news feed object may include a shortsnippet of the particular content, a thumbnail image, and a hypertextlink to the particular content hosted by third party website 210. Inaddition, comments to the news feed at the social networking systemabout the particular web content and comments to the particular webcontent at third party website 130 may be synchronized since thecomments are stored in the same comment database 105. In some instances,the comments are stored based on the same unique thread identifier asdescribed above. In particular embodiments, news feed engine 110 mayaccess comment database 105 to include in a news feed one or morecomments made by the first user, or by a first-degree friend of thefirst user, about the particular web content at third party websites130. In particular embodiments, the first user or a second user, whenviewing the comments thread from a news feed, may add one or moreadditional comments about the particular web content by adding theadditional comments to the news feed item, causing news feed engine 110to store the additional comments about the particular web content incomment database 105. In particular embodiments, news feed engine 110may access comment database 105 and include the additional commentsabout the particular web content in the news feed. In particularembodiments, web server 131 may construct a web page containing theparticular web content and associated user comments, causing the commenthosting process to access comment database 105 for user commentsassociated with the particular web content, including the additionalcomments made by the first user or the second user to the news feeditem. Accordingly, the comment thread for a particular web content itemmay include comments entered in connection with the third party web siteand the social networking system.

FIGS. 4A, 4B, and 4C, in addition to FIG. 4, illustrate examplesynchronizations of user comments between the social networking systemand a third party website. For example in FIG. 4, a first user “user2”posts comment 403 to an article about a college football game (401) in athird party website “www.example.com”, causing the comment hostingprocess to store comment 403 in comment database 105. News feed engine110 can access comment database 105 to include comment 403 andinformation about the article (e.g., title and web site of the article)in the first user's news feed, as illustrated in FIG. 4A. For example, asecond user can add a comment to the article by typing in his comment incomment box 410 and selecting a submit icon 411 (“Post comment towww.example.com”) in the news feed (e.g., on the first user's userprofile page), causing news feed engine 110 to store the second user'scomment in comment database 105, and display the second user's comment(404) in the news feed, as illustrated in FIG. 4B. Web server 131 mayrefresh the web page in FIG. 4, causing the comment hosting process toaccess comment database 105 and updating the user comment inline frame402 including the second user's comment 404, as illustrated in FIG. 4C.

Particular embodiments described above on synchronization of usercomments associated with a same web content may not be limited to thesocial networking system and a third party website. Two or more websitesmay share particular web content, for example, multiple newspapers canshare a news article provided by a news service agency (e.g., Reuters).In particular embodiments, two or more websites may synchronize usercomments for a particular web content by storing and accessing usercomments for the particular web content in comment database 105 usingthe same comment identifier.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example method of ordering user comments based onsocial graph information and privacy settings. The ordering process maybe initiated when a request for comments including a comment threadidentifier is received by the comment hosting process. In particularembodiments, the comment hosting process may receive a user commentevent for the particular web content (501). For example, a user commentevent can be a user request for comments associated with a particularcontent of third party website 131. Another user comment event can bethat news feed engine 110 constructs a news feed of a particular user,including user comments on the particular web content by the particularuser and other users. For example, a user comment event can be that anew user comment about the particular web content is submitted at theweb page containing the particular web content and/or existing usercomments associated with the particular web content. In particularembodiments, the comment hosting process may access comment database 105for user comments associated with the particular web content (502).

In particular embodiments, the comment hosting process may generate alist of user comments weighted by recency (503). For example, thecomment hosting process can generate the list of user comments from alluser comments associated with the particular web content, and place thecomments in the list in chronological order (e.g., most recent first).In particular embodiments, the comment hosting process may adjust thelist of user comments based on social graph information of a first userassociated with the request (504). As discussed above, the first usermay be identified in a browser cookie appended to the request. Inparticular embodiments, the comment hosting process may access userprofile database 101 and adjust the order of the list of user commentsbased on social graph information of the first user. For example, thecomment hosting process can place comments from the first user'sfirst-degree friends at the beginning of the list of user comments. Inparticular embodiments, the comment hosting process may further adjustthe order of the list of user comments based on user attributes (e.g.,locality, trustworthiness, affiliation) and comment attributes (e.g.voting reputation). In some embodiments, the comment hosting process mayassign a weighting score to each of the user comments in the list ofuser comments based on social graph information, user attributes andcomment attributes. For example, the comment hosting process can assigna weighting score of 1.0 to comments made by the first user'sfirst-degree friends. The comment hosting process can assign a weightingscore of 0.5 to comments made by users in the same neighborhood (i.e.,Sunset District, San Francisco, Calif.) as the first user. For example,the comment hosting process can assign a weighting score of 0.8 tocomments made by users with the same affiliation as the first user orclose affinity to the first user (e.g., went to the same collage duringthe same school year). A system for measuring user affinity is describedmore generally in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/503,093, filed onAug. 11, 2006, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entiretyand for all purposes. For example, the comment hosting process canassign a weighting score of 0.7 to comments made by users having a highlevel of trustworthiness or a reputation score above a threshold. Anexample process of determining the level of trustworthiness of a userbased on user actions is described more generally in U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 11/701,744 filed on Feb. 2, 2007, which is herebyincorporated by reference in its entirety and for all purposes. Thecomment hosting process can assign a weighting score of 0.8 to commentswith positive voting reputation (e.g., more up votes than down votes).For example, the comment hosting process can assign a default weightingscore (e.g., 0.2) to rest of the comments in the list of user comments.In some embodiments, the comment hosting process may adjust the order ofthe list of user comments based on the weighting score of each comment,for example, ranking comments with higher weighting scores ahead ofcomments with lower weighting scores.

In particular embodiments, the comment hosting process may adjust thelist of user comments based on one or more privacy settings (505). Forexample, the comment hosting process may access user profile database101, determine one or more privacy settings for each comment of the listof user comment (e.g., as set by each comment's author), identify one ormore comments that the first user does not have permission to accessbased on the privacy settings of the commenting users, and remove theone or more identified comments from the list of user comments. Asdiscussed above, one or more of the comments may include privacysettings specifically configured for the user comment.

In particular embodiments, the comment hosting process may present theadjusted list of user comments to the first user (506). For example, thecomment hosting process can present the adjusted list of user commentsto the first user accessing a web page containing the particular webcontent by displaying the adjusted list of user comments in an inlineframe. For example, the comment hosting process can present the adjustedlist of user comments to the first user accessing a web page containinga news feed by passing the adjusted list of user comments to news feedengine 110 to be included in the news feed.

In particular embodiments, an administrator of third party website 130or the social networking system may moderate comments. In oneimplementation, the comment hosting process may allow administratoraccess to comment threads associated with a third party web site. Insome implementations, the comment thread identifiers may also include,or be associated with, information identifying a web domain. The socialnetworking system may allow administrators associated with a given webdomain to access comment threads associated with the web domain. Forexample, a third party website administrator may modify one or moreprivacy settings of a user comment in comment database 105. Inparticular embodiments, an administrator of third party website 130 orthe social networking system may moderate user comments of a particularweb content of third party website 130 by modifying privacy settings ofuser comments of the particular web content. In this manner, a thirdparty administrator may be able to individually control which commentscan be accessed by users generally as opposed to a more limited set ofusers. In some embodiments, the administrator may delete a particularuser comment from public view by modifying the privacy setting of theparticular user comment as only viewable to first-degree friends of theauthor of the particular user comment. In other embodiments, theadministrator may delete a particular user comment from public view bymodifying the privacy setting of the particular user comment as onlyaccessible to the administrator. In particular embodiments, theadministrator can black list a particular user by modifying privacysettings of every user comments by the particular user as onlyaccessible to the particular user. In some implementations, commentssubmitted by a first user may by default be viewable only by firstdegree friends of the first user until a third party web siteadministrator has had a chance to review the comment and make thecomment accessible to all users. In this manner, comments which may notbe appropriate for a more public or general audience can nevertheless bemade available to first degree friends of the user. In otherimplementations, comments by default may be accessible to everyone. Anadministrator may change the privacy setting of the user comment to beviewable only by the commenting user or the first degree friends of theuser.

While the foregoing embodiments may be implemented in a variety ofnetwork configurations, the following illustrates an example networkenvironment for didactic, and not limiting, purposes. FIG. 6 illustratesan example network environment 600. Network environment 600 includes anetwork 610 coupling one or more servers 620 and one or more clients 630to each other. Network environment 600 also includes one or more datastorage 640 linked to one or more servers 620. Particular embodimentsmay be implemented in network environment 600. For example, socialnetworking system frontend 120 may be written in software programshosted by one or more servers 620. For example, event database 102 maybe stored in one or more storage 640. In particular embodiments, network610 is an intranet, an extranet, a virtual private network (VPN), alocal area network (LAN), a wireless LAN (WLAN), a wide area network(WAN), a metropolitan area network (MAN), a portion of the Internet, oranother network 610 or a combination of two or more such networks 610.The present disclosure contemplates any suitable network 610.

One or more links 650 couple a server 620 or a client 630 to network610. In particular embodiments, one or more links 650 each includes oneor more wired, wireless, or optical links 650. In particularembodiments, one or more links 650 each includes an intranet, anextranet, a VPN, a LAN, a WLAN, a WAN, a MAN, a portion of the Internet,or another link 650 or a combination of two or more such links 650. Thepresent disclosure contemplates any suitable links 650 coupling servers620 and clients 630 to network 610.

In particular embodiments, each server 620 may be a unitary server ormay be a distributed server spanning multiple computers or multipledatacenters. Servers 620 may be of various types, such as, for exampleand without limitation, web server, news server, mail server, messageserver, advertising server, file server, application server, exchangeserver, database server, or proxy server. In particular embodiments,each server 620 may include hardware, software, or embedded logiccomponents or a combination of two or more such components for carryingout the appropriate functionalities implemented or supported by server620. For example, a web server is generally capable of hosting websitescontaining web pages or particular elements of web pages. Morespecifically, a web server may host HTML files or other file types, ormay dynamically create or constitute files upon a request, andcommunicate them to clients 630 in response to HTTP or other requestsfrom clients 630. A mail server is generally capable of providingelectronic mail services to various clients 630. A database server isgenerally capable of providing an interface for managing data stored inone or more data stores.

In particular embodiments, one or more data storages 640 may becommunicatively linked to one or more servers 620 via one or more links650. In particular embodiments, data storages 640 may be used to storevarious types of information. In particular embodiments, the informationstored in data storages 640 may be organized according to specific datastructures. In particular embodiment, each data storage 640 may be arelational database. Particular embodiments may provide interfaces thatenable servers 620 or clients 630 to manage, e.g., retrieve, modify,add, or delete, the information stored in data storage 640.

In particular embodiments, each client 630 may be an electronic deviceincluding hardware, software, or embedded logic components or acombination of two or more such components and capable of carrying outthe appropriate functions implemented or supported by client 630. Forexample and without limitation, a client 630 may be a desktop computersystem, a notebook computer system, a netbook computer system, ahandheld electronic device, or a mobile telephone. The presentdisclosure contemplates any suitable clients 630. A client 630 mayenable a network user at client 630 to access network 630. A client 630may enable its user to communicate with other users at other clients630.

A client 630 may have a web browser 632, such as MICROSOFT INTERNETEXPLORER, GOOGLE CHROME or MOZILLA FIREFOX, and may have one or moreadd-ons, plug-ins, or other extensions, such as TOOLBAR or YAHOOTOOLBAR. A user at client 630 may enter a Uniform Resource Locator (URL)or other address directing the web browser 632 to a server 620, and theweb browser 632 may generate a Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP)request and communicate the HTTP request to server 620. Server 620 mayaccept the HTTP request and communicate to client 630 one or more HyperText Markup Language (HTML) files responsive to the HTTP request. Client630 may render a web page based on the HTML files from server 620 forpresentation to the user. The present disclosure contemplates anysuitable web page files. As an example and not by way of limitation, webpages may render from HTML files, Extensible Hyper Text Markup Language(XHTML) files, or Extensible Markup Language (XML) files, according toparticular needs. Such pages may also execute scripts such as, forexample and without limitation, those written in JAVASCRIPT, JAVA,MICROSOFT SILVERLIGHT, combinations of markup language and scripts suchas AJAX (Asynchronous JAVASCRIPT and XML), and the like. Herein,reference to a web page encompasses one or more corresponding web pagefiles (which a browser may use to render the web page) and vice versa,where appropriate.

FIG. 7 illustrates an example computer system 700, which may be usedwith some embodiments of the present invention. This disclosurecontemplates any suitable number of computer systems 700. Thisdisclosure contemplates computer system 700 taking any suitable physicalform. As example and not by way of limitation, computer system 700 maybe an embedded computer system, a system-on-chip (SOC), a single-boardcomputer system (SBC) (such as, for example, a computer-on-module (COM)or system-on-module (SOM)), a desktop computer system, a laptop ornotebook computer system, an interactive kiosk, a mainframe, a mesh ofcomputer systems, a mobile telephone, a personal digital assistant(PDA), a server, or a combination of two or more of these. Whereappropriate, computer system 700 may include one or more computersystems 700; be unitary or distributed; span multiple locations; spanmultiple machines; or reside in a cloud, which may include one or morecloud components in one or more networks. Where appropriate, one or morecomputer systems 700 may perform without substantial spatial or temporallimitation one or more steps of one or more methods described orillustrated herein. As an example and not by way of limitation, one ormore computer systems 700 may perform in real time or in batch mode oneor more steps of one or more methods described or illustrated herein.One or more computer systems 700 may perform at different times or atdifferent locations one or more steps of one or more methods describedor illustrated herein, where appropriate.

In particular embodiments, computer system 700 includes a processor 702,memory 704, storage 706, an input/output (I/O) interface 708, acommunication interface 710, and a bus 712. Although this disclosuredescribes and illustrates a particular computer system having aparticular number of particular components in a particular arrangement,this disclosure contemplates any suitable computer system having anysuitable number of any suitable components in any suitable arrangement.

In particular embodiments, processor 702 includes hardware for executinginstructions, such as those making up a computer program. As an exampleand not by way of limitation, to execute instructions, processor 702 mayretrieve (or fetch) the instructions from an internal register, aninternal cache, memory 704, or storage 706; decode and execute them; andthen write one or more results to an internal register, an internalcache, memory 704, or storage 706. In particular embodiments, processor702 may include one or more internal caches for data, instructions, oraddresses. The present disclosure contemplates processor 702 includingany suitable number of any suitable internal caches, where appropriate.As an example and not by way of limitation, processor 702 may includeone or more instruction caches, one or more data caches, and one or moretranslation look-aside buffers (TLBs). Instructions in the instructioncaches may be copies of instructions in memory 704 or storage 706, andthe instruction caches may speed up retrieval of those instructions byprocessor 702. Data in the data caches may be copies of data in memory704 or storage 706 for instructions executing at processor 702 tooperate on; the results of previous instructions executed at processor702 for access by subsequent instructions executing at processor 702 orfor writing to memory 704 or storage 706; or other suitable data. Thedata caches may speed up read or write operations by processor 702. TheTLBs may speed up virtual-address translation for processor 702. Inparticular embodiments, processor 702 may include one or more internalregisters for data, instructions, or addresses. The present disclosurecontemplates processor 702 including any suitable number of any suitableinternal registers, where appropriate. Where appropriate, processor 702may include one or more arithmetic logic units (ALUs); be a multi-coreprocessor; or include one or more processors 702. Although thisdisclosure describes and illustrates a particular processor, thisdisclosure contemplates any suitable processor.

In particular embodiments, memory 704 includes main memory for storinginstructions for processor 702 to execute or data for processor 702 tooperate on. As an example and not by way of limitation, computer system700 may load instructions from storage 706 or another source (such as,for example, another computer system 700) to memory 704. Processor 702may then load the instructions from memory 704 to an internal registeror internal cache. To execute the instructions, processor 702 mayretrieve the instructions from the internal register or internal cacheand decode them. During or after execution of the instructions,processor 702 may write one or more results (which may be intermediateor final results) to the internal register or internal cache. Processor702 may then write one or more of those results to memory 704. Inparticular embodiments, processor 702 executes only instructions in oneor more internal registers or internal caches or in memory 704 (asopposed to storage 706 or elsewhere) and operates only on data in one ormore internal registers or internal caches or in memory 704 (as opposedto storage 706 or elsewhere). One or more memory buses (which may eachinclude an address bus and a data bus) may couple processor 702 tomemory 704. Bus 712 may include one or more memory buses, as describedbelow. In particular embodiments, one or more memory management units(MMUs) reside between processor 702 and memory 704 and facilitateaccesses to memory 704 requested by processor 702. In particularembodiments, memory 704 includes random access memory (RAM). This RAMmay be volatile memory, where appropriate Where appropriate, this RAMmay be dynamic RAM (DRAM) or static RAM (SRAM). Moreover, whereappropriate, this RAM may be single-ported or multi-ported RAM. Thepresent disclosure contemplates any suitable RAM. Memory 704 may includeone or more memories 702, where appropriate. Although this disclosuredescribes and illustrates particular memory, this disclosurecontemplates any suitable memory.

In particular embodiments, storage 706 includes mass storage for data orinstructions. As an example and not by way of limitation, storage 706may include an HDD, a floppy disk drive, flash memory, an optical disc,a magneto-optical disc, magnetic tape, or a Universal Serial Bus (USB)drive or a combination of two or more of these. Storage 706 may includeremovable or non-removable (or fixed) media, where appropriate. Storage706 may be internal or external to computer system 700, whereappropriate. In particular embodiments, storage 706 is non-volatile,solid-state memory. In particular embodiments, storage 706 includesread-only memory (ROM). Where appropriate, this ROM may bemask-programmed ROM, programmable ROM (PROM), erasable PROM (EPROM),electrically erasable PROM (EEPROM), electrically alterable ROM (EAROM),or flash memory or a combination of two or more of these. Thisdisclosure contemplates mass storage 706 taking any suitable physicalform. Storage 706 may include one or more storage control unitsfacilitating communication between processor 702 and storage 706, whereappropriate. Where appropriate, storage 706 may include one or morestorages 706. Although this disclosure describes and illustratesparticular storage, this disclosure contemplates any suitable storage.

In particular embodiments, I/O interface 708 includes hardware,software, or both providing one or more interfaces for communicationbetween computer system 700 and one or more I/O devices. Computer system700 may include one or more of these I/O devices, where appropriate. Oneor more of these I/O devices may enable communication between a personand computer system 700. As an example and not by way of limitation, anI/O device may include a keyboard, keypad, microphone, monitor, mouse,printer, scanner, speaker, still camera, stylus, tablet, touch screen,trackball, video camera, another suitable I/O device or a combination oftwo or more of these. An I/O device may include one or more sensors.This disclosure contemplates any suitable I/O devices and any suitableI/O interfaces 708 for them. Where appropriate, I/O interface 708 mayinclude one or more device or software drivers enabling processor 702 todrive one or more of these I/O devices. I/O interface 708 may includeone or more I/O interfaces 708, where appropriate. Although thisdisclosure describes and illustrates a particular I/O interface, thisdisclosure contemplates any suitable I/O interface.

In particular embodiments, communication interface 710 includeshardware, software, or both providing one or more interfaces forcommunication (such as, for example, packet-based communication) betweencomputer system 700 and one or more other computer systems 700 or one ormore networks. As an example and not by way of limitation, communicationinterface 710 may include a network interface controller (NIC) ornetwork adapter for communicating with an Ethernet or other wire-basednetwork or a wireless NIC (WNIC) or wireless adapter for communicatingwith a wireless network, such as a WI-FI network. This disclosurecontemplates any suitable network and any suitable communicationinterface 710 for it. As an example and not by way of limitation,computer system 700 may communicate with an ad hoc network, a personalarea network (PAN), a local area network (LAN), a wide area network(WAN), a metropolitan area network (MAN), or one or more portions of theInternet or a combination of two or more of these. One or more portionsof one or more of these networks may be wired or wireless. As anexample, computer system 700 may communicate with a wireless PAN (WPAN)(such as, for example, a BLUETOOTH WPAN), a WI-FI network, a WI-MAXnetwork, a cellular telephone network (such as, for example, a GlobalSystem for Mobile Communications (GSM) network), or other suitablewireless network or a combination of two or more of these. Computersystem 700 may include any suitable communication interface 710 for anyof these networks, where appropriate. Communication interface 710 mayinclude one or more communication interfaces 710, where appropriate.Although this disclosure describes and illustrates a particularcommunication interface, this disclosure contemplates any suitablecommunication interface.

In particular embodiments, bus 712 includes hardware, software, or bothcoupling components of computer system 700 to each other. As an exampleand not by way of limitation, bus 712 may include an AcceleratedGraphics Port (AGP) or other graphics bus, an Enhanced Industry StandardArchitecture (EISA) bus, a front-side bus (FSB), a HYPERTRANSPORT (HT)interconnect, an Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus, an INFINIBANDinterconnect, a low-pin-count (LPC) bus, a memory bus, a Micro ChannelArchitecture (MCA) bus, a Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus, aPCI-Express (PCI-X) bus, a serial advanced technology attachment (SATA)bus, a Video Electronics Standards Association local (VLB) bus, oranother suitable bus or a combination of two or more of these. Bus 712may include one or more buses 712, where appropriate. Although thisdisclosure describes and illustrates a particular bus, this disclosurecontemplates any suitable bus or interconnect.

Herein, reference to a computer-readable storage medium encompasses oneor more non-transitory, tangible computer-readable storage mediapossessing structure. As an example and not by way of limitation, acomputer-readable storage medium may include a semiconductor-based orother integrated circuit (IC) (such, as for example, afield-programmable gate array (FPGA) or an application-specific IC(ASIC)), a hard disk, an HDD, a hybrid hard drive (HHD), an opticaldisc, an optical disc drive (ODD), a magneto-optical disc, amagneto-optical drive, a floppy disk, a floppy disk drive (FDD),magnetic tape, a holographic storage medium, a solid-state drive (SSD),a RAM-drive, a SECURE DIGITAL card, a SECURE DIGITAL drive, or anothersuitable computer-readable storage medium or a combination of two ormore of these, where appropriate. Herein, reference to acomputer-readable storage medium excludes any medium that is noteligible for patent protection under 35 U.S.C. §101. Herein, referenceto a computer-readable storage medium excludes transitory forms ofsignal transmission (such as a propagating electrical or electromagneticsignal per se) to the extent that they are not eligible for patentprotection under 35 U.S.C. §101.

This disclosure contemplates one or more computer-readable storage mediaimplementing any suitable storage. In particular embodiments, acomputer-readable storage medium implements one or more portions ofprocessor 702 (such as, for example, one or more internal registers orcaches), one or more portions of memory 704, one or more portions ofstorage 706, or a combination of these, where appropriate. In particularembodiments, a computer-readable storage medium implements RAM or ROM.In particular embodiments, a computer-readable storage medium implementsvolatile or persistent memory. In particular embodiments, one or morecomputer-readable storage media embody software. Herein, reference tosoftware may encompass one or more applications, bytecode, one or morecomputer programs, one or more executables, one or more instructions,logic, machine code, one or more scripts, or source code, and viceversa, where appropriate. In particular embodiments, software includesone or more application programming interfaces (APIs). This disclosurecontemplates any suitable software written or otherwise expressed in anysuitable programming language or combination of programming languages.In particular embodiments, software is expressed as source code orobject code. In particular embodiments, software is expressed in ahigher-level programming language, such as, for example, C, Perl, or asuitable extension thereof. In particular embodiments, software isexpressed in a lower-level programming language, such as assemblylanguage (or machine code). In particular embodiments, software isexpressed in JAVA. In particular embodiments, software is expressed inHyper Text Markup Language (HTML), Extensible Markup Language (XML), orother suitable markup language.

The present disclosure encompasses all changes, substitutions,variations, alterations, and modifications to the example embodimentsherein that a person having ordinary skill in the art would comprehend.Similarly, where appropriate, the appended claims encompass all changes,substitutions, variations, alterations, and modifications to the exampleembodiments herein that a person having ordinary skill in the art wouldcomprehend.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: by a computer system of asocial-networking system, receiving a request for user comments to bedisplayed in a user interface with web content of a third-party websitedistinct from the social-networking system, the request associated witha first user, the third-party website being hosted by a third-partysystem that is separate from the social-networking system, and thesocial-networking system comprising social graph information thatcomprises a plurality of nodes connected by a plurality of edges,wherein each node corresponds to a member of the social-networkingsystem, and each edge represents a relationship between two users whocorrespond to two nodes connected by the edge; by the computer system ofthe social-networking system, responsive to the request, retrieving froma data store of user comments a plurality of user comments, each of theplurality of user comments being submitted by a respective second userfrom a plurality of second users, and the data store being maintained bythe social-networking system; by the computer system of thesocial-networking system, for each user comment in the plurality of usercomments: computing an affinity score based on: (1) social graphinformation about a relationship between the first user and therespective second user associated with the user comment, and (2) useractivities of the first user and the respective second user within anenvironment provided by the social-networking system, wherein the useractivities include interactions by the first user with content or withanother user; by the computer system of the social-networking system,determining a locality of the respective second user; by the computersystem of the social-networking system, determining an ordering of theplurality of user comments based on the social-graph information of thefirst user, the computed affinity scores, and the locality of therespective second user; and by the computer system of thesocial-networking system, providing for display on the third-partywebsite the plurality of user comments based on the ordering of theplurality of user comments.
 2. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: by the computer system of the social-networking system,determining a level of trustworthiness of the respective second user,wherein the level of trustworthiness of the respective second user isbased on one or more user activities of the respective second user, andthe ordering of the plurality of user comments is further based on thelevel of trustworthiness of the respective second user.
 3. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the plurality of user comments are ordered furtherbased on one or more privacy settings.
 4. The method of claim 1, whereinthe plurality of user comments are ordered further based on reputationscores associated with authors of the plurality of user comments.
 5. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising: by the computer system of thesocial-networking system, assigning a weighting score to each of theplurality of user comments based on social graph information, userattributes, and comment attributes, wherein user comments having higherweighting scores are ranked ahead of user comments having lowerweighting scores.
 6. The method of claim 5, wherein the user attributescomprise locality, trustworthiness, affinity, and affiliation, and thecomment attributes comprise voting reputation.
 7. The method of claim 1,wherein the social-networking system comprises the computer system andthe data store, the social-networking system comprising a social graphcomprising a plurality of nodes and edges connecting the nodes, thenodes comprising user nodes that each correspond to a corresponding userof the social-networking system, and the social-graph information beingderived from the social graph.
 8. The method of claim 1, wherein therequest for user comments comprises: a user identifier of thecorresponding user to display the plurality of user comments to; and athread identifier identifying: the web content; and a web page where theweb content resides.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein the ordering ofthe plurality of user comments is further based on one or more weightingscores, and comments made by users having a high level oftrustworthiness are weighted higher than comments made by users locatedin the same neighborhood as the user associated with the request. 10.The method of claim 1, wherein the user comments stored in the datastore are associated with the web content of the third-party website,each user comment being stored in the data store in association with athread identifier identifying the associated web content of thethird-party website and a web page that includes the web content. 11.The method of claim 1, wherein each of the user comments stored in thedata store is associated with content information, author information,review information, or privacy settings.
 12. One or morecomputer-readable non-transitory storage media embodying software thatis operable when executed to: receive at a social-networking system arequest for user comments to be displayed in a user interface with webcontent of a third-party website distinct from the social-networkingsystem, the request associated with a first user, the third-partywebsite being hosted by a third-party system that is separate from thesocial-networking system, and the social-networking system comprisingsocial graph information that comprises a plurality of nodes connectedby a plurality of edges, wherein each node corresponds to a member ofthe social-networking system, and each edge represents a relationshipbetween two users who correspond to two nodes connected by the edge;responsive to the request, retrieve from a data store of user comments aplurality of user comments, each of the plurality of user comments beingsubmitted by a respective second user from a plurality of second users,and the data store being maintained by the social-networking system; foreach user comment in the plurality of user comments: compute an affinityscore based on: (1) social graph information about a relationshipbetween the first user and the respective second user associated withthe user comment, and (2) user activities of the first user and therespective second user within an environment provided by thesocial-networking system, wherein the user activities includeinteractions by the first user with content or with another user;determine a locality of the respective second user; order the pluralityof user comments based on the social-graph information of the firstuser, the computed affinity scores, and the locality of the respectivesecond user; and provide for display on the third-party website theplurality of user comments based on the ordering of the plurality ofuser comments.
 13. The media of claim 12, wherein the software isfurther operable when executed to determine a level of trustworthinessof the respective second user, the level of trustworthiness of therespective second user is based on one or more user activities of therespective second user, and the ordering of the plurality of usercomments is further based on the level of trustworthiness of therespective second user.
 14. The media of claim 12, wherein the pluralityof user comments are ordered further based on one or more privacysettings.
 15. The media of claim 12, wherein the plurality of usercomments are ordered further based on reputation scores associated withauthors of the plurality of user comments.
 16. The media of claim 12,wherein the software is further operable when executed to assign aweighting score to each of the plurality of user comments based onsocial graph information, user attributes, and comment attributes,wherein user comments having higher weighting scores are ranked ahead ofuser comments having lower weighting scores.
 17. A system comprising:one or more processors of one or more computer systems of asocial-networking system; and a memory coupled to the processorscomprising instructions executable by the processors, the processorsbeing operable when executing the instructions to: receive a request foruser comments to be displayed in a user interface with web content of athird-party web site distinct from the social-networking system, therequest associated with a first user, the third-party website beinghosted by a third-party system that is separate from thesocial-networking system, and the social-networking system comprisingsocial graph information that comprises a plurality of nodes connectedby a plurality of edges, wherein each node corresponds to a member ofthe social-networking system, and each edge represents a relationshipbetween two users who correspond to two nodes connected by the edge;responsive to the request, retrieve from a data store of user comments aplurality of user comments, each of the plurality of user comments beingsubmitted by a respective second user from a plurality of second users,and the data store being maintained by the social-networking system; foreach user comment in the plurality of user comments: compute an affinityscore based on: (1) social graph information about a relationshipbetween the first user and the respective second user associated withthe user comment, and (2) user activities of the first user and therespective second user within an environment provided by thesocial-networking system, wherein the user activities includeinteractions by the first user with content or with another user;determine a locality of the respective second user; order the pluralityof user comments based on the social-graph information of the firstuser, the computed affinity scores, and the locality of the respectivesecond user; and provide for display on the third-party website theplurality of user comments based on the ordering of the plurality ofuser comments.
 18. The system of claim 17, wherein the processors arefurther operable when executing the instructions to: determine a levelof trustworthiness of the respective second user, wherein the level oftrustworthiness of the respective second user is based on one or moreuser activities of the respective second user, and ordering of theplurality of user comments is further based on the level oftrustworthiness of the respective second user.
 19. The system of claim17, wherein the plurality of user comments are ordered further based onone or more privacy settings.
 20. The system of claim 17, wherein theplurality of user comments are ordered further based on reputationscores associated with authors of the plurality of user comments.